Three years ago, the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia included a Gilded Age home-turned-church on Girard Avenue on its quarterly Places to Save list. That served as a warning of its potential demise more than as an honorific. Yet, either way, the preservation gods may have been listening.

Ferat Ferko, a plumber and part-time developer operating in Philadelphia, said he purchased the French Gothic Revival building at 1609 W. Girard Avenue last fall with the intention of restoring it–or at least its handsome front facade–and converting the interior into apartments. During an interview in January, Ferko was unaware of the structure’s history. Some scholars believe it was designed by notable architect William Lightfoot Price and constructed in 1895. The once well-to-do residence is listed on the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places. It later became home of the Mount Sharon Baptist Church in 1970, which maintained active ownership of the property until about 2017. Ferko expressed intrigue, asking for more information and stating he had no intention of seeking a demolition or otherwise materially altering the structure, which has fallen on hard times over the past decade. “We’re going to keep it the same in the front,” Ferko said. “I’ll fix it nice.”

He confirmed prior reports that the building’s roof is significantly compromised. He also said there are structural issues to the rear of the building, which extends to a depth of about 100 feet from the facade. He’s recently had an architect in to begin drafting repairs for the roof and rear walls and is working to close Department of Licenses and Inspections (L&I) violations with the City over the building’s derelict status and exterior sanitation issues.

Ferko has a track record nearby, stating that he restored the adjacent 1613 Girard Avenue, a three-story rowhouse built in the 1860s that is also listed on the local register. City property records and visual evidence indeed indicate that Ferko worked to rehab the property.

This all sounds like good news to Hanna Stark, director of policy and communications at the Preservation Alliance. She is the author and researcher behind the 2023 Extant magazine article on 1609 W. Girard Avenue. Last Stark had heard, the home’s future was tied up in a messy Act 135 process–a legal remedy allowing third-parties to take charge of historic buildings with absentee owners. Now there is new hope for what she called a “very distinct” late 19th century home. “That was what caught our eye, was the fact that it was so unique. You don’t really see these types of loggia porches on Girard, very atypical from the standard rowhouse, even from a time when West Girard was very desirable and fashionable,” Stark explained. “And it comes at a very interesting point in Price’s career, after he had already done some of his suburban Arts and Craft style.”

A Gilded Beginning

Who was the original owner of 1609 W. Girard Avenue? Stark’s research points to Ferdinand Keller, a “significant importer of antiques to Philadelphia” in the late 1800s. That would appear to make sense. During the Preservation Alliance’s research for a nomination of the nearby Pyramid Club, Keller’s name was linked to architect Price, whom he hired to renovate that property at 1517 W. Girard. A late 19th century construction of 1609 W. Girard Avenue by a prominent architect would also fit thematically, occurring at a time when wealthy Philadelphians were populating the corridor and building grandiose residences, none more so than the Widener Mansion at Broad Street and Girard Avenue which was built 1887.

Keller would appear to have fit in with that crowd. “Keller was the largest importer of Old World antiques to Philadelphia for roughly a half-century, from around the time of the Centennial until the 1920s,” the Preservation Alliance noted in its nomination. “It is likely that Keller supplied at least some of the antiquities that filled Woodmont and Price’s other mansions along the Main Line. What is clear is that Price was himself a great admirer of the kinds of antiquarian objects that Keller collected and sold.”

What isn’t clear is whether Keller was indeed the owner and commissioner of 1609 W. Girard Avenue. The Preservation Alliance cites a 1985 nomination of the Girard Avenue Historic District to the National Register of Historic Places by Dr. George Thomas of the Clio Group, which attributes the “wonderful French Gothic house” as being designed by Price for Keller.

However, other records call that into question. Bruce Bohri, a spokesperson for the Department of Planning and Development, said its files on the property are scant. However, a clipping it holds from the 1891 Philadelphia Real Estate Record and Builders Guide states that a construction firm called Geo. Watson & Son was to build a residence with a “brownstone front” for Dr. B.F. Betz at 1609 Girard Avenue. The snippet makes no mention of Keller or Price, although it does not specify the architect.

Contemporary newspaper records point in a similar direction.The first reference to a 1609 W. Girard Avenue dates to 1861, when a Philadelphia Inquirer article lists for sale a “well built three-story” brick dwelling at the address without further description. Other records suggest occupancy by a George Stuckert eight years later, and then a Dr. Betts, a “prominent homeopathic physician,” by 1882. In 1891, the same year as the clip housed in the City’s files, a notice in The Philadelphia Times also notes that “George Watson” had been retained to perform a “front and interior alteration” at 1609 Girard Avenue. Dimensions are listed as “30×15 feet,” which appears to match the approximate size of the building’s current limestone porch. Again, the notice did not specify the architect of any alterations and appears to contradict the Builders Guide snippet from the same year, which suggested a brand new construction.

Additional newspaper records suggest continued residency at the address by the Betts family into the early 20th century until, at some point, passing into the hands of a Hill family until 1949. Then, the building changed uses. Records show it was purchased by Lewis James Howell, once head of Temple University’s vocal department, for use as a music school. Howell, also once president of the Philadelphia Music Teachers Association and founder of the Pennsylvania Music Teachers Association, started a “Duo Music Club” at 1609 Girard Avenue and advertised music study sessions in local papers until his death in 1956.

Rise and fall of Mt. Sharon Baptist Church

The more recent history of 1609 W. Girard Avenue as the home of the Mt. Sharon Baptist Church is clearer. Newspaper records indicate the congregation first purchased the property in May 1972 and owned it until its recent 21st century dereliction.

Stark, in her 2023 Extant article, said the congregation was founded in 1949 by Reverend Berkley Hall, who preached racial justice and equity until his death in 1960. The congregation continued to grow after his death, necessitating the purchase of 1609 W. Girard Avenue, which it converted into a worship space. Eventually, Hall’s daughter, Prathia, who served as a field organizer with the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee in the South, took over as pastor until her own death in 2002.

Prathia, according to her 2002 obituary in the Philadelphia Daily News, was shot and jailed in separate incidents in Georgia in 1962 as she organized civil rights demonstrations. She showed further bravery in becoming one of the first female preachers in the “male-dominated Baptist church, when men sometimes walked out on a woman minister,” her obituary reads. Prathia would later move to Boston, where she held the Martin Luther King Jr. Chair in Social Ethics at the Boston University School of Theology.

“Thinking about changing demographics of the neighborhood, it’s interesting that [1609 W. Girard] was kind of built for the new industrial class, and then the neighborhood becomes predominantly African American,” Stark said. “It’s an interesting duality of this space.”

Following Prathia’s death, her sister Betty Hall took stewardship of 1609 W. Girard Avenue. It was then that the building began to deteriorate and rack up L&I violations, even as Hall and Pastor Clarence Smith launched an unsuccessful capital campaign in 2017 to repair the building. Stark said that in 2020, the Calcutta House, a nonprofit occupying another distinct nearby property at 1601 W. Girard Avenue, initiated the Act 135 process to attempt to save the building from dereliction. However, a dispute over ownership of Mt. Sharon Baptist Church (Stark believes Betty Hall passed during the pandemic ) and the Calcutta House’s own closure in the following years threw the effort into disarray.

Regardless of the mysteries swirling around the property’s distant and recent past, Stark said she is glad to see new ownership and hopes it is restored. During walkthroughs during the 2010s, Stark said collegues described the building as in very poor condition, with significant water damage likely taking place for at least a decade. Still, she said the building’s significant history from the Gilded Age through Civil Rights era, and its unique facade, are indeed worth saving. “It’s a stunning building,” said Stark. “I think the fact that a developer is willing to take on rehabilitation shows that a building is never too far gone.”

---

---